The old man emptied his shopping bag into his cupboards. He restocked his rich tea biscuits, his wholegrain rice, and his tinned chopped tomatoes. He’d bought the biggest box of teabags he could find, because it was the cheapest per teabag. He’d been doing that for twenty years, and drinking four cups of tea a day. The new box of teabags would last him six months; in six months time he’d have saved up enough money to buy the next six months worth.
He hung his waterproof coat up on the rack near his front door. He felt cold without his coat, so he went to his bedroom and pulled on a thick wool jumper. He sat down in front of the television in his living room, but he didn’t turn it on. Instead he took out the stack of free magazines he’d sneaked out of the doctor’s office when he’d gone for his diabetes check up. They weren’t about anything interesting; celebrities and food mostly, but it was something new to read. He’d read the books on his shelf twice over each, at least. He’d read some of the Thomas Hardy books three times; he was too old to head out to the countryside, so he enjoyed reading about it.
A knock came from the door. The old man frowned. His doorbell battery had gone dead, and he hadn’t bothered to replace it because he didn’t expect anyone to actually to come to his front door. He stood up and walked over. He looked through the peephole, and saw a young man he’d noticed entering and leaving an apartment down the hall. The man had dark brown hair and a long beard. He wore a National Express vest, presumably a bus driver, and so someone to be trusted. The old man pulled the door open.
“Hello there. Sorry to bother you,” said the bus driver. “I was just wondering if you had any ice?”
“Ice?” said the old man. “Yes, I think I have a bag in my freezer. I’m not sure.”
“My missus is pregnant, and her ankles have swollen up real bad. She reckons that chucking some ice on them might help a bit. Worth a try we thought anyway. We’ll replace it next time we’re in the shop. Tomorrow probably.”
“Let me check. If I have any you can have it. No need to replace it; I don’t use it for anything.”
He went back into his kitchen. He opened the freezer door, and pulled out one of the shelves. There was a bag of ice in there. There was also ice encrusted over the entire interior of the freezer. He’d been meaning to defrost the freezer for a while. He took the bag of ice back to the front door and handed it to the bus driver.
“Thanks mate,” said the bus driver. “I could hear you opening the freezer drawers. Sounds like they need defrosting.”
“It needs doing, but I haven’t got around to it lately.”
“Tell you what: I’ll go and drop this ice round to my missus, then I’ll come round and get rid of the ice for you. I always scrape mine away with a penknife. I’ll get it spick and span for you. It’ll save you a job.”
“Okay that would be nice. Shall I put the kettle on for you?”
“Yeah, go on then.”
“You like Earl Grey?”
“Sure do mate, sure do.”
The bus driver took the bag of ice back down the hall to his apartment. The old man went into the kitchen and filled up the kettle. He set it to boil and took some tea towels out of the cupboard. The bus driver returned and knelt down in front of the freezer. He pulled a penknife out of his pocket and started to dig away at the ice with one of the blades. He took handfuls of the freed up ice and dropped it onto the tea towels on the floor.
“I always keep a penknife on me,” said the bus driver. “Whenever we’re at a party and there’s a bottle of wine needs opening, or someone needs a screwdriver, I’ll whip this out. My dad gave it to me as a birthday present when I was about sixteen.”
The kettle finished boiling. The old man made two cups of tea and gave one to the bus driver.
“I’m about halfway done,” said the bus driver. He stood up and leaned against the counter and rubbed his wrist. “How long have you lived here?”
“About thirty years. I moved here with my wife, about ten years before I retired. Been here ever since. Hopefully I won’t ever end up anywhere else.”
“You live here on your own?”
“Yup. I have a son and a daughter, but they both moved a long way away a long time ago. I don’t see them very often. How about you?”
“We were living with my missus’s mother before. Then we got pregnant and we needed somewhere of our own; if we’d stayed with the old bag much longer I’d have killed her! She insisted on cooking dinner every night, but she cooked the life out of everything! I told her I like my steak rare, or medium at the absolute most. She would cook dinner, and give me a scorched strip of fucking carbon. Waste of a good stake, and that’s one of my few pleasures in life.”
“You like it here so far? Must be settled in by now more or less.”
“Yes, it’s fine I suppose; a bit more dear than I’d like. I wish we could afford to save some money. I’d like it if we could give the baby a chunk of money, when they graduate uni or whatever, but at the moment everything goes on rent and bills.”
“Back when I was young, you could work a job and have enough money to live on and to save. You work on the buses don’t you? Driving? Back in the day you would’ve had your own house off the back of that, and the missus would be able to stay at home with the little one, once it arrived.”
“Yes, yes, but not anymore. She’s going to have a year or so off, then she’ll have to go back to work.”
“Who’s gonna look after the baby then?”
“You get a few hours of day carefree, and the rest you have to pay for. That’ll stop us from saving much, but at least we’ll have our heads above water.”
The bus driver finished his tea and went back to digging away the ice. The old man sat down at the kitchen table and they talked while the bus driver worked. Once all of the ice was gone from the freezer, and the tea towels were soaked through with slush, the old man picked them up and tipped the slush into the sink. He put the tea towels into the washing machine. They went through to the living room.
“Is this you and the old lady?” asked the bus driver, pointing at a photo above the television. It showed a young man and woman on a beach. He wore a pin stripe suit and she wore a frilly summer dress.
“Sure is,” said the old man.
“I like your style. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a man wearing a pinstripe suit in real life. You sure you weren’t a gangster or something like that?”
“No, ha-ha! Engineer. Back in the day, us engineers had the world at their feet. Once I had my qualifications, to prove that I was clued up, I got hired to work all over. I travelled to Spain on work and took old Molly with me. The company I worked for had plants all over Europe, and I was there in Spain to oversee a big, new installation. It felt good being the big man, telling everyone what to do. I did the same thing in Germany, but we preferred Spain for the weather. A local kid who worked the sea took the photo. We went up to him, and saw he had a boat full of ugly, weird looking eels and things. I asked him to take a snap of us with Molly’s new camera. He didn’t know what a camera was till we explained.”
“I wish I could see the world. I never will. Must’ve been sweet.”
“It was. I did an apprenticeship as soon as I got out of school. Back in those days they aimed to really teach you something, you see, when you did an apprenticeship. I wish I’d saved a bit more for retirement when I was working; nowadays I can’t even afford to heat the flat.”
“Let me know if you ever need some company. When the baby comes you can come around to our place and meet it. Won’t have any real granddads, you see. You can do the job right? I know you’re retired, but you can still be a part-time granddad can’t you?”
“Oh yeah, can do. They passed have they?”
“My dad has. He died years ago. Hers is alive, but he’s in prison. Well, to be honest, for all we know he could be out by now, but that’s neither here nor there. We’ll never see him. I’ve never even met the bloke and I never will. Anyway, let me know anytime you need a hand with anything. I’m pretty good with fixing things round the house you know.”
“I will. Thanks for sorting out my freezer. I hope that bag of ice makes your missus’ feet feel better.”
“No problem. I’ll see you soon.”
The bus driver left, and the old man returned to his reading. He picked up one of the Thomas Hardy novels and flicked through it. He read a page here and there, just to remind himself of things that he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten what it was like to be in the countryside, where you could look out of the window and see a beautiful view. He’d read the book at least three times, and knew it inside out, but the feeling he got when he read it felt like something he had lost a long time ago.
The old man closed his eyes and tried to remember his son and daughter and wife. He thought he’d gone to the countryside with them once, and they’d had a picnic together in a wide, pretty meadow. The fragrances of soil and blossoms lingered at the frontier of recollection; he reached out with invisible hands to caress a tickling halo of fresh-sprouted grass. In the memory his wife looked young, like she did in the photo above the television. She couldn’t have been that young, not when they’d had the picnic, because the photo was from a long time before they’d had children. Perhaps it wasn’t really a memory, after all; perhaps it was more of a dream.
*****
Sam Paget is a writer from Birmingham, England. He writes contemporary fiction, focused on pivotal moments in the lives of working class characters.
